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Out of School Club

Amanda72

Hi, Just looking for some advice or words of wisdom. My son is 8 and has ASD, he is pretty high funtioning and as such needs minimal support in school. Many of his difficuties are at playtime/lunchtime etc but the school are working on this.

Both my husband and I work full time and my son goes in before and after school club. He has now been excluded twice from the club with little notice as his behaviour was unacceptable and put other children at risk of injury etc. School can't intervene as out of school is run separately. I feel at the end of my tether with the situation and am on pins in case he plays up again and gets excluded.

He is clearly struggling and when he goes into a meltdown he does tend to run off or can just lose it and throw things around. I know that all behaviour is communication but if I'm not there and they are not watching him then they may well be missing the cues. I feel trapped in a helpless situation and totally at the mercy of the woman who runs the club and who will just phone me and say she's not going to accept him for the rest of the week etc.

 

Parents

  • Did the out of school club organiser know of your son's AS diagnosis at the point of accepting him as a participant.

    Because if so they have obligations to him and to you, and should have ensured they understood the potential difficulties. They cannot just use exclusion to somehow shift the problem.

    There is a danger too that his behaviour is a response to them not looking after him, in line with his disability, in an appropriate manner. They cannot "constructively" exclude him - set him up to fail.

    You say things are working out well at school. So you need to investigate why the after school club is different. Of course it might just be by then that the build up of stress during the day just breaks during after school club. But the reasons kids on the spectrum may do fine at school and then blow up at home are partly down to peer pressure and the need to try to conform to be accepted. I'd reckon that applies to after school club as much as school.

    Are his classmates from school at the after school club? If so why would he behave well at school then show himself up in front of his peers at the afterschool club?

    Are they providing him with the option of a safe and quiet zone if he feels a meltdown coming on (if he's able to predict that) or when he feels the stress is too much? It seems to me, reading between the lines, maybe wrongly, that they expect him to have his meltdowns in public.

    The meltdown may be a last straw response to build ups of stress over the course of the day, rather than there being obvious cues or signals to look for when a meltdown happens. The trigger may be very inobvious because often its about built up stress. All the same the "last straw" for him may be thoughtless handling at the after school club.

    So if kids are injured or at risk they say because he throws things during a meltdown - so he's left in the middle of a group of kids when this happens? Or has the option to go somewhere safe and quiet?

    You say you are totally at the mercy of this woman who runs the club. Is she, or any of her staff, properly qualified to support a child on the autistic spectrum?

    Sounds like she owes you a very full and proper explanation.

Reply

  • Did the out of school club organiser know of your son's AS diagnosis at the point of accepting him as a participant.

    Because if so they have obligations to him and to you, and should have ensured they understood the potential difficulties. They cannot just use exclusion to somehow shift the problem.

    There is a danger too that his behaviour is a response to them not looking after him, in line with his disability, in an appropriate manner. They cannot "constructively" exclude him - set him up to fail.

    You say things are working out well at school. So you need to investigate why the after school club is different. Of course it might just be by then that the build up of stress during the day just breaks during after school club. But the reasons kids on the spectrum may do fine at school and then blow up at home are partly down to peer pressure and the need to try to conform to be accepted. I'd reckon that applies to after school club as much as school.

    Are his classmates from school at the after school club? If so why would he behave well at school then show himself up in front of his peers at the afterschool club?

    Are they providing him with the option of a safe and quiet zone if he feels a meltdown coming on (if he's able to predict that) or when he feels the stress is too much? It seems to me, reading between the lines, maybe wrongly, that they expect him to have his meltdowns in public.

    The meltdown may be a last straw response to build ups of stress over the course of the day, rather than there being obvious cues or signals to look for when a meltdown happens. The trigger may be very inobvious because often its about built up stress. All the same the "last straw" for him may be thoughtless handling at the after school club.

    So if kids are injured or at risk they say because he throws things during a meltdown - so he's left in the middle of a group of kids when this happens? Or has the option to go somewhere safe and quiet?

    You say you are totally at the mercy of this woman who runs the club. Is she, or any of her staff, properly qualified to support a child on the autistic spectrum?

    Sounds like she owes you a very full and proper explanation.

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